The Chase

Andrew writes excellent chase scenes. This one is suspenseful and lively, and the last line is one of my favorites in the whole story.

Safiki skidded to a stop where three narrow alleys intersected. … When he turned around he saw a boy not much older than himself sneaking toward him.

“You are the one with the book,” the boy said, cracking his knuckles. Safiki backed away.

“He is Safiki, the one with the book,” said another voice, and Safiki saw the three children stand up from their game of Cat Punch.

“You,” said the old woman with the sheep sandwich, “have the look of a boy with a rare and precious book.”

The satchel suddenly felt as conspicuous as a third foot. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Safiki said.

“Get him,” the woman barked.

The four children chased him to a dead end, which was fine since Safiki was an excellent climber. He shimmied up one wall and hand-walked along a laundry line to the opposite wall while the children threw trash at him and jumped to try and grab his feet. He swung through an open window and interrupted a family gathered around a table to eat a meal of ferno-on-the-bone. The father looked up from his prayers and gasped, “It is the boy with the book!”

“Safiki!” said the mother.

“Get him!” screamed the three young children.

Safiki jumped onto the table and danced across it, dodging hands and swiping a bite of roasted ferno lizard leg in the process, then tore through the house while the family shouted curses behind him. He burst from their front door onto a narrow walkway above the street. Residents from the other houses poked their heads from windows and doorways. “What is all this fuss?” they shouted, and then, “Get him! He has the book!”

Safiki edged along the railing, squirming and twisting out of the grip of many hands, until he reached a set of stairs at the end. A crowd had already gathered in the alley below, so he had no choice but to climb another flight. He reached a rope bridge to the next building, which was several stories taller than the last, and climbed again, higher and higher as the people of the Wormway grew in number and anger…

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